enly the blood flooded into the old man's face, and he looked up
with a start at his interrogator.

"Do you mean to say that option's for a year? he demanded.

"That is the way it reads--now," whispered Hiram, watching him closely.

The old man turned the book around slowly on the counter. His stubbed
finger pointed to the two or three scrawled lines written in a certain
place.

Hiram read them slowly, with beating heart.

CHAPTER XX. AN ENEMY IN THE DARK

The whispered conference between Hiram Strong and the storekeeper could
not be heard by the curious crowd around the cold stove; nor did it last
for long.

Caleb Schell finally closed his ledger and put it away. Hiram shook
hands with him and walked out.

On the platform outside, which was illuminated by a single smoky
lantern, a group of small boys were giggling, and they watched Hiram
unhitch the old horse and climb into the spring wagon with so much
hilarity that the young farmer expected some trick.

The horse started off all right, he missed nothing from the wagon, and
so he supposed that he was mistaken. The boys had merely been laughing
at him because he was a stranger.

But as Hiram got some few yards from the hitching rack, the seat was
suddenly pulled from under him, and he was left sprawling on his back in
the bottom of the wagon.

A yell of derision from the crowd outside the store assured him that
this was the cause of the boys' hilarity. Luckily his old horse was of
quiet disposition, and he stopped dead in his tracks when the seat flew
out of the back of the wagon.

A joke is a joke. No use in showing wrath over this foolish amusement of
the crossroads boys. But Hiram got a little the best of them, after all.

The youngsters had scattered when the "accident" occurred. Hiram,
getting out to pick up the seat, found the end of a strong hemp line
fastened to it. The other end was tied to the hitching rack in front of
the store.

Instead of casting off the line from the seat, Hiram walked back to the
store and cast that end off.

"At any rate, I'm in a good coil of hemp rope," he said to one of the
men who had come out to see the fun. "The fellow who owns it can come
and prove property; but I shall ask a few questions of him."

There was no more laughter. The young farmer walked back to his wagon,
set up the seat again, and drove on.

The roadway was dark, but having been used all his life to country
roads at night, Hiram had no dif